Earlier in the week I gave a presentation on YouTube for fun and education, telling the tale about dipping my toes into the world of YouTube in the last few months. The slides should be below and I’m hoping to produce an audio version too, once I cut down the narrative from 70 minutes to about 10 minutes or YouTube-size.

| View | Upload your own

The screenshots in the presentation should be hyperlinked to the appropriate videos or you can view them all as a YouTube playlist – be warned there is some occasional fruity language and adult themes in some of the videos.

The key points that have come out my YouTube experience are:

• There is such a thing as a YouTube community that supports each other, plays tag games and collaborates on videos
• Individuals are more likely to succeed on YouTube than organisations, as they can participate in the social side of the site
• Too many organisations are treating YouTube as a traditional broadcasting mechanism, but some can take advantage of the opportunities of this social media space
• YouTube is an entertainment space and not designed for teaching and learning – it is not always a welcoming place, be warned
• There is plenty of educational content on YouTube, but it is difficult to find and you may be better off using 3rd party recommendations
• Video as a format shares some issues with audio podcasting, it can be difficult to mainstream into existing work and can be inefficient in terms of communicating information
• Being able to turn on a webcam and chat is a talent in itself – you might expect some people to be good at it, others seem to be able to do it naturally and others have grown into it, using it as a springboard towards an academic career
• YouTube can bring people together and the best way to do that, is to be an active member of the community

Intute: Social Sciences features selected educational resources from YouTube.